


every day, anew

by zenosungs (pastelkoma)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, tw panic attacks, tw suicidal thoughts, tw unhealthy coping mechanisms, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26854189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelkoma/pseuds/zenosungs
Summary: he wants to disappear. he wants to drown, or something. both.it’s wednesday, and he claws at his skin and laughs and then cries and everything in between; and he feels like he's a kaleidoscope that’s gonna shatter into a billion different pieces of a billion different parts of him until there isn’t anything left of him at all.he doesn’t sleep that night, either.(or: how oikawa's week goes.)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 7
Kudos: 109





	every day, anew

**Author's Note:**

> tw // suicidal thoughts  
> tw // panic attacks  
> tw // unhealthy coping mechanisms
> 
> i love u, stay safe please
> 
> it’s a sort of vent but sort of not, i promise i’m not feeling like tooru rn, it was kinda a word purge where i wrote down whatever floated to mind
> 
> written in one sitting, unedited, lmk if u spot mistakes!!

.

.

.

.

.

_the world trembles and cracks_

it doesn’t shatter, though, not yet, maybe not ever but then again maybe also soon because oikawa feels like the sky is being split open and so maybe he's being split open along with it. there is so much to do _so much to fucking do_ but it’s also sunday evening and he hates sundays, hates them so much. sundays are sad. sundays feel like sticky cobwebs clogging up his throat and sundays feel like failure and bitter tea that quakes in his stomach.

maybe it’s also because he’s a teenager but he feels too old for his body, like it’s some sort of skin he’s been encased in, somewhat of an exoskeleton that makes it hard to breathe. maybe sundays aren’t the problem. maybe he is.

sundays are the ticking time bomb before monday explodes into uncountable fragments, signifying the beginning of a new week, and the ending of an old one. oikawa wants to begin and end like that. he feels like this has stretched on for too long, that _he_ has stretched on for too long—

deep breath.

it doesn’t last very long before he lets it go and thin fingers claw into the blanket that’s wrapped around him, like spiders, clinging onto everything and clinging onto nothing, just trying to find home. 

_home, home, home—_

and, in a way, he misses that, he misses home, or the feeling of it. ever since he—ever since he fucked up at that game that was supposed to bring them to nationals, bring them to their dream—he failed his team, failed everyone and failed iwaizumi and everyone had stared at him with such hopeless eyes and everything was so full of despair and all he can recall is the hitching of breath as karasuno’s wild cheers rang dismissively in his ears and it was all his fault, **_his_ ** fault, _himhimhimhimhim—_

deep breath.

sundays are sad.

  
  


-

he wakes up from a nightmare.

the world around him bellows a scratchy lullaby in the folds of the night.

he doesn’t dream again for the rest of it.

-

as dreamless as a night can be, terrors remain as you awaken, especially when it’s cold and you’re alone and you feel fucking terrible and maybe empty, too. 

empty. he’s not a glass half full, he’s a glass half empty. there’s nothing for him to offer anymore, no one wants a fucked up failure with a fucked up knee, who had fucked up so bad that he couldn’t _bring his team to stupid fucking nationals_

mondays are supposed to be better but they never are. instead, japan drifts amidst him, cherry blossoms are dancing with butterflies outside a nearly-shattered window. linoleum floors tremble beneath his weight. the ceiling threatens to fall in on him.

_he wouldn’t mind if it does._

he wouldn’t mind if he died right now. somewhere in the recesses of his mind—the parts of it that are trying to make sense of the terrifying world that drapes around him—there’s some sort of alarm. that maybe he shouldn’t be thinking that way but yet he still thinks it, anyway.

japan is pretty and there are cherry blossoms and butterflies are singing a tattered song that just brings back the worst of worst memories—

mondays are supposed to be better, and yet, they never are.

he doesn’t go to his classes that day.

it’s harder in university, harder when he’s the only person for himself and the only presence in a barren battle zone of a room. there are dirty dishes in the sink and he’s a trembling exoskeleton of what was once a human on the inside. it’s harder when there’s no one with him. it’s harder when iwaizumi is far.

his breath hitches when he pours himself cereal that monday morning, the same way it did when he had brought them all to defeat. there’s a stinging in the back of his eyes, one that he forces himself to believe doesn’t exist. maybe, if he thinks hard enough and hard enough _hardenough_ maybe it’ll really happen and he can just feel numb and forget. it works that way for iwaizumi, right? 

_(“no, i’m working on it, tooru, don’t copy me. you have to talk to people if you feel bad, dumbass. just because i cope this way doesn’t mean you should. i’m fixing it.”_

_oikawa blinks. “but it works, though.”_

_“it’s not healthy.” iwaizumi ends the conversation there.)_

not healthy. then again, a lot of the things in oikawa’s life can be deemed as “not healthy.” not the way he shuts himself in the bathroom when he reminisces on his failure and screams into bruised knees on cold bathroom tile, not the way he yanks at his hair and punches his fists into walls when he has no other method to cope, not the way his fingers twitch around the phone when he considers calling iwaizumi when he has his episodes.

so, he’s not a healthy person to begin with.

“i’m sorry, iwa-chan,” oikawa says. his smile is bitter. it’s the kind of smile that he reserves when he’s alone, a stark contrast from the sweetness that oozes from him when he’s anywhere else. “sorry.”

he chews around a spoonful of cereal. it’s too sweet. or maybe everything is just wrong with him today. today, tomorrow, every day, every week and month from now on.

he closes his eyes and forces himself to pretend there isn’t a problem in the first place.

_theyhateyouandyoufailedthemandiwa-chandoesn’tloveyouandyou’reaterriblefuckingfailure—_

this sad monday shivers under the sun’s watchful eye.

-

he doesn’t fall asleep that night. he instead leans over the balcony’s railing and thinks about what’d it’d be like to soar.

iwaizumi had always liked pretty kinds of birds, anyway.

-

_do you think you deserve this? do you think this is what you want? you’re the burnout kid, now. do you think you’re allowed to just be happy after what you’ve done? after what you did to your own fucking team? tooru, you’re a fucking team captain, and you couldn’t even lead them to victory. you failed them and they all hate you. can’t you see it on their faces? can’t you read it in their eyes? and iwaizumi, especially iwaizumi, he pretends to love you but he’s just as disappointed in you as everyone else. you fucked up. you_ **_are_ ** _fucked up._

-

tuesday sits heavy in his bones.

he doesn’t eat cereal that morning. he doesn’t eat at all.

there’s an earth-shattering weight pressing on his chest and clambering on his shoulders and drenching him in terrifying onyx. (it’s funny because ravens are onyx-colored, too.) it’s there from the moment he opens his eyes, settling deep in his veins and traveling through his blood and infecting him in every part of his fucked up body. 

he curls up. 

tuesday sits heavy in his bones, and he only gets up twice to use the bathroom and then he falls asleep like that.

it’s his second day missing university. he hates it.

but he hates the weight on his chest even more. it’s tuesday, and it’s sitting heavy in his bones, and he can’t grasp onto any blurry reasons to get out of bed.

(so he doesn’t. there’s no reason to, anyway. obviously.)

-

there’s a text from iwaizumi when he wakes up from a dreamless sleep. there are multiple texts, actually. stuff like “are you doing okay?” and stuff like “answer me, dumbass” and bullshit like “i’m going to come over if you don’t answer.”

they’re all empty threats. 

_wednesday_.

wednesdays sit pretty in the middle of the week but today there is nothing pretty at all, even when oikawa leans over the balcony railing and grasps a stray cherry blossom between bony fingers. he crumples it in his hand because it does nothing to alleviate the ache that has settled within him. which is really funny, because he’s always liked pretty stuff (iwaizumi) but this time, it just makes him ache deeper.

the sky is still splitting open, like scissors have been sliced through it, a slit in a once-blue dream. it’s going to bleed at this rate. it’s going to bleed heavy raindrops and those will fizzle into oikawa’s pale skin like acid and then he’s going to bleed right along with it and maybe he’s going to die, too.

he should be alarmed by how much the thought doesn’t scare him.

but it’s not like failures can sit pretty like wednesdays do. failures are exactly what they are, and oikawa is the textbook definition. he is not as strong as he says he is. he is not as strong as he acts. he is not. he is not. and he is nothing.

iwaizumi calls him. one time, two times, three times, four. oikawa loses count until the ringing of the phone becomes background noise. 

but the last thing he wants is for iwaizumi to actually come over (not when he definitely hates oikawa) or for him to call the cops. so he sends one text:

**_to iwa-chan:_ ** i’m fine!! dw

there’s a reply not a minute later.

**_from iwa-chan:_ ** you’re acting weird.

 **_from iwa-chan:_ ** …

 **_from iwa-chan:_ ** don’t make me worry like that, you shitty dumbass oikawa.

 **_from iwa-chan:_ ** ...i love you, tooru

and oikawa laughs. 

he laughs and he laughs _oh god_ and he laughs hysterically _fuck fuck fuck_ and there are tears, but they’re not feel-good tears, there is only hopelessness and terror and self-hatred at what he is. what he’s _become_. a burnout kid that was once on top of the world. no one can love him. not anymore. no one can love him, even iwaizumi. _especially_ iwaizumi, who shouldn’t love him at all, not when all oikawa does is grant him a burden and **_disappoint disappoint disappoint_ **

he wants to disappear. he wants to drown, or something. both.

it’s wednesday, and he claws at his skin and laughs and then cries and everything in between. the world is blurry and shaky and shades of scary onyx and he feels like he's a kaleidoscope that’s gonna shatter into a billion different pieces of different parts of him until there isn’t anything left of him at all.

he doesn’t sleep that night, either.

-

thursday. something bad is going to happen and he knows it. 

not something bad, like, that the world is going to unleash upon him.

something bad because he’s the _something_ , and there is the _bad_ that crawls between the cracks of his bones and chews away at his muscles and ligaments. oh, gosh. 

and he should’ve known he was fucked from the start, from the beginning of the week, the beginning of everything, the beginning of his existence. everything is a goddamned downward spiral and there isn’t a way out, it’s just downdowndown forever and ever and ever until oikawa dies. which could be soon. he could make it soon. if he makes it soon, then he doesn’t need to deal with this.

with everything. with himself. with the world and the bleeding sky.

he looks up stuff on the internet. the first thing that shows up is the sucide hotline, big and bold smack in the middle of the screen. he scrolls past it, and there is an article with questions. questions so he knows if this will pass or if he really does want to disappear and die or if he really is feeling suici—

  1. do i feel worthless, guilty, helpless, or hopeless?
  2. have i been feeling sad, down, or blue on most days?
  3. do i eat more or less than usual?
  4. do i cry more than usual?
  5. do i feel like life isn’t worth living?



this isn’t helpful, he decides _(but only because you know that you really are only because you know that you want to leave only because you know that you—)_ as his eyes scan over the words and the truth sinks in; so he chucks his phone at the wall and watches it bounce and fall to the floor with a noise that makes him cover his ears and let out a choked sound. 

_the world trembles and cracks_

it’s thursday. he trembles and cracks along with it.

-

he wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare he can’t place his finger on.

he drifts softly between consciousness and unconsciousness, wavering, eyes opening and closing, despair dripping from fluttering eyelashes.

(beneath it all, he wishes it can all just stop.)

-

friday, he’s scared.

he’s scared because he wakes up and he knows that he doesn’t have the will to stop himself if he really does try to do anything. try to disappear. try to drown, or, like he thought earlier, both. he’s scared because his head is blaring so much and there’s too much noise and the bed is too hard and the cereal is too sweet and the floors are too cold

too cold

too much

_too much, too much—_

he thinks about the questions from yesterday and he thinks and thinks and thinks but he’s coming up with nothing and the sky has split open finally and it’s bleeding he’s bleeding he’s going to start bleeding and he feels like he’s going to die, but, hey, isn’t that what you want? what’s the point anymore? 

you _tried_ and _tried_ and _tried_ for so long and you failed, you’re being surpassed by everyone, no one loves you, you couldn’t achieve your goal and no one loves you, not even iwa-chan, especially not the teammates you let down—

he’s scared. he’s so, so scared.

he doesn’t move from his bed and he shudders in the middle of it, shaky eyes staring at the ceiling as he tries to breathe but he can’t. he can’t he can’t do anything anymore. play volleyball, be a good friend, be a good boyfriend. he can’t _breathe_ and he can’t find the reason to want to keep going on with this, with the life that’s ahead of him. he’s in university and why? what’s next for him? is there a future that awaits him? what if there isn’t?

he shudders again.

he’s scared.

he just wants to be okay again. wants the world to be patched up. wants the sky to stop bleeding. wants him to stop bleeding with it. 

the next thing he knows, he’s calling iwaizumi because he always talks to iwaizumi when he’s scared; iwaizumi, who shouldn’t love him at all, but is going to answer the phone anyway. oikawa shouldn’t be doing this but he has no other option (even though dying sounds like an okay one. maybe. maybe).

iwaizumi answers after the second ring. “what—”

“iwa-chan,” oikawa all but chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut at the way his voice dances in the air so shakily. he sounds like he’s dying. he’s having a hard time breathing and he sounds like he’s dying and he wants to die and he wants to disappear forever and he wants to tell iwaizumi it's okay if iwaizumi doesn’t love him anymore, oikawa doesn’t want him to love him anymore, oikawa doesn’t—

“tooru,” iwaizumi mutters, and _oh_ , there’s the usage of the first name. 

“i—i don’t, i can’t—”

there’s rustling on iwaizumi’s end of the line. “you _can_ breathe, because i’m going to start to breathe with you and you’re going to follow along,” he says, voice softening (how did he know that oikawa needs him? how did he know that he’s what oikawa needs, even though oikawa doesn’t want it to be like this?) 

“do you love me?” oikawa asks even though that’s not his main concern. in a way, maybe it is. can iwaizumi still love a failure like him? everyone left because everyone hates oikawa and he’s a disappointment of a team captain, but iwaizumi. it’s always iwaizumi. always. always there, always. 

“i—of course i do, idiot. what kind of dumb question is that?”

“and you—you’re sure?” oikawa stutters out, biting back a sob. he brings an arm up to cover his eyes with it, blocking out the light that spills inside the ugly dorm room. 

“what? of course, shittykawa, there’s nothing i’ve been more sure of.”

(it’s so honest. he’s so honest. he’s everything. oikawa is nothing.)

“you shouldn’t,” oikawa says, and he feels himself growing more frantic. there are no snarky comments to say in reply, nothing there, no remnants of his fun personality that always teases and prods at iwaizumi for fun. there is just despair, clinging to his eyelashes and the edges of his trembling words. “you shouldn’t. fuck. fuck. i’m _sorry—_ ”

“breathing, we’re breathing,” iwaizumi reminds, kind of muffled and rushed. “do you need me to come over, tooru?”

oikawa can’t hold back the sob this time, a strangled noise that seeps into the phone call. there’s a soft noise of alarm on iwaizumi’s end. “ _no_. you—you’re so far and i’m not worth it, okay? fuck. f-fuck, it’s _okay_ , just talk to me. i just. i need to talk before i do something stupid or drastic or—i d-don’t know, i don’t—”

“i’m coming over,” iwaizumi says. more rustling on his end of the line. “right now. i swear on it. and don’t say that. you’re worth _everything_ , tooru, everything and more. fuck, you’re everything to me, okay?”

_empty words empty promises empty lies_

“please don’t come—”

don’t see me like this. not when i’m breaking down, or my skin is red from where i’ve been scratching at it. not when there are piles of dirty dishes in the sink. not when i haven’t taken a shower in so long. not when i’m like this. not ever.

“i’m coming. it’ll take a while, but i’ll stay on the phone the entire time. i love you. i love you. i love you,” iwaizumi says, a litany, maybe to provide some sort of comfort. oikawa shudders and sobs again, harder this time. he can’t breathe. “i love you. keep breathing with me. i’m on my way.”

oikawa doesn’t want him here, doesn’t, doesn’t _doesn’t—_

(but he _does_. more than anything, he does. more than anything he just wants to be held and told that maybe, just maybe, it’ll all be okay.)

so he tries to breathe with iwaizumi and he clutches the phone in a shaky hand and tries his hardest not to think about dying or disappearing even though it’s all he wants to do.

iwaizumi arrives later on, and he holds oikawa and presses kisses to his face and his eyelids and his cheeks and his neck and everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. oikawa shudders too much, but he doesn’t truly break down. it’s going to happen, though. he knows it. iwaizumi does, too. it’s been a while since they got to touch each other like this, but still, iwaizumi knows everything that goes on with him.

it’s friday. he’s still scared.

-

saturday.

he shatters.

the morning is spent waking up and then exploding and then sobbing so hard he can’t breathe or form a single word, being held in iwaizumi’s arms before he pushes him away because oikawa just needs space right now, room to breathe (even though he can’t) and room to just shatter and break like a kaleidoscope. fragmented. unrepairable.

“hey. hey,” iwaizumi says as oikawa sobs even harder, catching a strangled gasp of air before it gets thrown back out in the form of another sob. “hey, tooru. i got you. i got you, okay?”

oikawa shakes his head. “i f-fucked up, i fucked up _so bad_.”

because iwaizumi knows everything, he knows what oikawa is talking about. “you didn’t fuck anything up,” he says, voice firm as he cups oikawa’s wet cheek, rivulets of tears cascading down blotchy skin. “tooru, you didn’t fuck anything up. you did your best. you did enough.”

“not good enough, it wasn’t enough—!” oikawa rasps out, turning his head away from iwaizumi’s palm against his cheek, undeserving of comfort. he shudders out another violent sob, shoulders bouncing as his lungs struggle to catch air. “i’m not enough, i’m disappointing, i was supposed to l-lead us to—to victory—”

“good teams lose, oikawa,” iwaizumi says, before planting a kiss to oikawa’s sweaty temple. “good teams lose sometimes, okay? that doesn’t mean you’re not enough. you’re more than enough. you did _so much._ ”

lie after lie after lie

“i’m so fucked up,” he sobs out, shaking his head as iwaizumi shushes him softly. “c-can’t take care of myself, can’t go to class, can’t do _anything_.”

“you don’t have to. you don’t have to do anything at the moment, alright? no one is asking that of you. everything can wait. i’m here and i have you, so just focus on your breathing, alright? can you do that for me, tooru?”

he can’t, he can’t—

“you can do it, come on,” iwaizumi gently pulls oikawa to his chest, angling his head so the brunet’s ear presses against iwaizumi’s chest. “hear my heartbeat? it’s slow. let’s try to breathe so your heart can match it, alright, tooru?”

oikawa shudders and shatters and dies a little inside, but he tries. he _tries_.

“i love you, i love you so much,” iwaizumi begins to chant, another repeated litany of comfort. “i love you. i love you, oikawa. i love you so much.”

(sometimes words have no meaning, but iwaizumi’s words always do.)

oikawa is exhausted and he wants to stop existing at this very moment. it would be easier. it would be so easy to just cease to exist, but—

“i love you, and you did so much for the team,” iwaizumi states, voice steady like it’s a fact. “we love you and we don’t blame you for _anything._ whatever is going on in your head can quiet down now, alright? i’ll make sure it does.”

“mm,” oikawa hums, hiccuping slightly before another small sob wracks his body. it’s less now, but still there and making him tremble every few seconds. “i l-love you, too.”

iwaizumi smiles softly against his head. “yeah. i know. and you’re okay. well, you’re _not_ , because you deserve better and you deserve to be happy all the time, even though you’re a little shit. but things will be okay eventually. i’ll be here through it all, shittykawa.”

and it sucks, it sucks because he _still_ feels all mangled and tattered and broken, because love is not an easy cure. iwaizumi is not a magician who can take all of oikawa’s pain away with a kiss. this goes deeper than that, and it is the true reality; life isn’t a movie where having a lover takes your mental pain away.

this sits true and heavy inside of him as he cries in between iwaizumi’s legs, pressed against a broad chest as everything spills from inside of him, murmurs of soft words going completely over his head, as he splinters and shakes with each heave.

(the rest of saturday is spent with warm touches on the bed, kisses of comfort and what can only be love, gentle exchanges of words between two boys. 

oikawa thinks he’s supposed to feel better. he doesn’t. he still feels like the world is collapsing in on itself. he still wants to cease to exist. he wants so much. he wants iwaizumi. he wants to disappear. wants to stop hurting. wants to believe iwaizumi’s words.

it’s okay, though. maybe. 

there’s always hope for a new week.)

**Author's Note:**

> you're worth everything and i love u and ur so loved
> 
> (edit: this is not meant to romanticize mental health issues. of course, it’s wonderful to have someone to lean on, but mental health issues aren’t something to romanticize or see it as an opportunity to be taken care of someone. iwaizumi is there for support, but he is not a magical cure for oikawa. oikawa is healing. he will heal.)


End file.
